Wednesday, February 16, 2011

New York Times Plurality Ballot

The New York Times has a spiffy site for their poll / voting on the Best Picture Academy Award. All ten nominees are on the ballot but there's something a little wrong - they're using a plurality ballot! Their ballot will show who has the most votes, and could reveal a majority winner - but as of this posting NYT's poll leader The King's Speech is at a 44 percent plurality.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses a preferential ballot like the one offered above. Instead of a single choice, a voter ranks their favorite flicks. On our ballot, as of this posting, The King's Speech is at 33 percent of first choices. If you view the results and click on "FINAL ROUND" the film goes on to be the majority winner. What has happened is the app performed a series of runoff elections until one flick, The King's Speech crossed 50 percent + 1 of the votes.

I like the New York Times and read it often. But please, the "paper of record" should at least have a preferential ballot for their mock election! If you want a more realistic Oscar election - use our app above.

About OscarVotes123

This blog is dedicated to examining and explaining the innovative voting systems used by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to nominate and select winners of the prestigious Academy Awards. For more than half a century, AMPAS has used the choice voting method of proportional voting to nominate candidates in all award categories. Since 2009, the Academy has used instant runoff voting to determine the winner of the coveted Best Picture award. Read on to find out more about these systems and what they mean for Oscar voting!